Coronavirus: Lost

There was an interval of at least 2 months between the discovery of coronavirus December 2019 and his first appearance in the United States in Washington state.  It was clear in that time  this was a very dangerous, sometimes deadly, extremely disruptive epidemic.  It makes me very angry that so little was done in the interval.

What ever was left of the part of the government that protects it people failed.  I recognize that it has been stripped of its resources.  It also appears that its administration did not function properly.  I do not understand the details of why testing materials took so long to produce, why the original tests were defective, but I would not be surprised if some profit motive drove this problem.

No one took charge.  That includes Anthony Fauci and it is an indictment of the president, his Department of Health, his supporters and even his powerful detractors.

But this is not a time to review the past mistakes.  The crisis is ongoing

The current mistakes need to be dealt with.  It is apparent that the Providence Hospital system's calling for such strict restriction on the use of protective equipment increases the probability for staff to become infected.  If staff is infected, and there is an asymptomatic cohort spreading virus, that virus is spreading to hospitalized patients and to other staff members.  Restrictions in anticipation of worsening epidemic are worsening the epidemic. Protective equipment should be used wisely.  It should be used carefully, it should not be wasted, but it should be used when needed to protect workers, staff, patient's and the population at large

The restrictions on who can be tested have increased the epidemic.  It creates a cohort of people who suspect that they may spread the virus and who cannot find out if they are  infected.  The delay in reporting is a significant hardship.

There is a clear variation in the severity of disease.  It is not clear to me what causes this variation.  It is possible that minor variations in the virus could cause ultimately less severe disease.  The current model of disease involves a large component of damage by the immune system.  The details of the viral sequence and the proteins that it codes may directly interact with the elements of the immune system that are invoked.  There may be a immunizing strain of the coronavirus that is currently in the population.  Such as strain that approaches this dream could be identified by looking at people who have had a mild case was contacts have also had a mild case.  Such an approach is clearly very dangerous.  Not pursuing such an approach may also be an error